Female entrepreneurs fund now welcoming applicants

A €750,000 fund for female entrepreneurs is available for up to 15 successful applicants, across a wide range of technology and science fields.

Is your business idea or early-stage start-up working in the area of internet, games, apps, mobile, SaaS, cloud computing, enterprise software, life sciences or food?

If so, the Enterprise Ireland fund now open for applications may be of interest. With €50,000 on offer, you can apply before 17 May.

Called the Competitive Start Fund (CSF) for Female Entrepreneurs, the initiative aims to accelerate the number of women-led start-up companies with the potential to employ more than 10 people and achieve €1m in export sales within three years.

15 participating founders will be given €50,000 each as part of the fund, helping their companies reach key commercial and technical milestones.

Previous people who have taken part in the CSF include Liz Fulham and Rhona Togher, founders of SalesOptimize and Restored Hearing, respectively.

Enterprise Ireland said that last year, 34pc of CSF recipients were women entrepreneurs, and that the number of women-led early-stage companies in its High-Potential Start-ups category grew from 7pc to 20pc between 2012 and 2016.

The funds operated by Enterprise Ireland were discussed earlier this year when Michael FitzGerald, CEO and founder of OnePageCRM, said his company’s journey started with a €5,000 ‘Innovation Voucher’ when the product was still just an experiment.

He then joined a different CSF and everything took off. “We were able to drop everything else we were doing and go focus on OnePageCRM,” he said.